


Wyrms Are Ace.

by ofwyrmsandguns



Series: Charlie is Aroace, Bill is demi bisexual [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And wyrms wyrms are important JK and they Exist as Giant Snakes, AroAce Charlie Weasley, Gen, I’ll acknowledge the North East Of England exists even if J.K. wont, Many mention only characters, Realising Sexuality, Self indulgent Drabble, asexual bill weasley, wyrms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:49:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofwyrmsandguns/pseuds/ofwyrmsandguns
Summary: Charlie drops by Bill’s house for a catch up.





	Wyrms Are Ace.

The crack of the apparation was mostly lost in the soft crashing of the waves. Charlie shook his head and laughed to himself as he walked out of the ocean, the water just to say reaching his ankles but already spreading through his shoes. He'd been meaning to replace them.

 

Shell cottage stood, as it always had done, overlooking the Cornish coast like a squat grandmother, watching the waves peacefully through the windows. It was unnaturally quiet today; when they visited as children Charlie and his 6 siblings would scream the walls down, while more recently Bill's kids were doing the same thing. It was good to keep traditions going.

 

Charlie let himself in and shouted a greeting to Bill, wherever he might be, and headed to the kitchen, immediately searching the cupboards for the cake he knew mum had given them.

 

“Looking for something?” Came a voice from the back door, causing Charlie to jump and wheel round to face Bill, a warm smile spread across his scarred face. “Fleur took the cake and the kids to see her mother, you're out of luck.”

 

Charlie snapped his fingers in mock defeated fustration, but returned Bill's smile. He plopped himself down at the kitchen table, and Bill joined him.

 

“We always said we'd break and enter each other's houses to steal each others food, Bill. You can't blame me.” Charlie pouted.

 

“Hardly fair considering you mostly live in mum and dad's house, or a rented flat abroad.” Bill pointed out. “I can't easily steal your food, especially since mum just gives her's away if you get within 10 miles of the Burrow.”

 

“You're one to talk! Always in a different continent! I doubt Fleur would appreciate me drinking your butterbeer at 3 in the morning.”

 

“Why would you want my butterbeer at 3 in the morning?” Bill asked.

 

“Never you mind.” Charlie answered hastily.

 

They sat in comfortable, amused silence for a few moments, before Bill asked. “So, how's the dragons?”

 

“Fantastic!” Charlie beamed, clearly waiting for Bill to bring it up. “We've only had 2 abandonments so far this mating season, its less work for us but its better for the babies. Been trying to convince my boss to let me borrow one of them for the next family get together. I'd love to see mum's face when I introduce her to my child, since everyone else has had all of theirs cooed over.” Charlie complained. “But my boss won't budge.”

 

“If you ever manage it, you'll have to tell Hagrid, he'd love to coo over your, uh, baby.” Bill chuckled. “Speaking of which, how's Norberta?”

 

“She's doing well. Hagrid's a grandad now though, he's gonna visit this summer. We named her baby after him, and she's doing a really good job so far. I reckon she learnt it all from Hagrid.” Charlie explained, smiling to himself. “Oh, and you'll never guess what we finally got? Been after one for a while, but they're never found when we're ready for one.”

 

Bill's face fell. They were ready for Hungarian Horntails and Norwegian Ridgebacks at the drop of a hat, but not for this type of dragon? “Surely not...”

 

“A wyrm! Finally! They're pretty rare, as you can imagine, so everyone's really excited. Had to drag myself away.” Charlie beamed. “I should have a photo somewhere...”

 

“Don't they grow hundreds of feet long and devour full fields of cows daily?” Bill asked.

 

“Well, yeah. Fully grown they can, and this is what the lad's nicknamed a 'stripy Mackem', so she can grow huge, but we reckon we can control her growth through diet and magic. Some muggle fished her up up North, somewhere near Washington, I think. They were gonna have her for tea as well, poor thing.” Charlie said. Bill cleared his throat awkwardly, as much as he respected Charlie's love of dragons, he found it difficult to consider such a dangerous creature a 'poor thing'.

 

Charlie found the photo with a triumphant 'Ah ha!', and handed it to Bill. The moving photo showed Charlie and a couple other heavily tanned, and occaisionally burnt, dragon keepers stood holding a long, snake-like creature. The 'stripey' part of the nickname was obvious; it had green and yellow horizontal stripes wrapping around its body and stomach. It turned and faced the camera, the large, bulging eyes looking almost goofy from this angle, and opened its mouth wide, revealing many sharp, and very large, teeth. All the dragon keepers in the photo looked extremely pleased with the opportunity to hold her, although the wyrm herself seemed indifferent.

 

“Do you think she's gonna be a big one then?” Bill asked.

 

“Well, right now she's only about 5 feet long, so she's definitely still a baby. But she certainly seems to be eating enough to grow full sized.” Charlie remarked happily.

 

“I thought you said you were controlling the diet!”

 

“We will, but she's a baby, Bill. It wouldn't be fair. And she's not much at 5 feet, anyone can carry her and she can't really defend herself if more of those bastards come along.” Charlie spat the last few words, jaw set hard and eyes glaring at the floor. The sanctuary regularly had problems with so-called 'monster hunters' trying to poach their dragons for hide and trophies, but a few years back a gang of nearly 20 had broken in and killed nearly a third of their dragons before finally being defeated. Bill reached across the table and patted Charlie's shoulder sympathetically. “Anyway, she doesn't look like a proper wyrm yet, you'd mistake her as a snake or a fish, really. No, we're thinking maybe 20 feet, which should take a few years but it ideal for her self defence and our self preservation.”

 

Bill glanced at the bright green and yellow wyrm in the photo again, having trouble imagining who would mistake something so garish as a fish. “Has she got a name?” Bill asked, and Charlie shook his head.

 

“We've been looking at muggle stories for inspiration though. Towns with legends, names of legends. The main competitors are Lambton, Wear, and my favourite, Darling.”

 

“You want to name a wyrm Darling.” Bill confirmed, voice deadpan in disbelief. Charlie laughed.

 

“After Darlington, of course. Sounded better than Sockburn or Fatfield, you see.”

 

“Socks would be a funny nickname for a limbless dragon though.” Bill pointed out.

 

Charlie chuckled softly. “How's the curse breaking going, anyway?”

 

“Pretty good, yeah! We finished a tomb the other week so I'm back home early until Gringotts arranges a new one. The kids were ecstatic, as always.” Bill grinned, a look of fatherly pride smothering his face.

 

“Anything exciting in the most recent one then?”

 

“Tons!” Bill said excitedly. “First chamber had a curse that bound you in live snakes, it was filled with corpses of muggles that had activated it and gotten themselves killed. We just had to exhaust its power for it to break though, got lots of practice with snake charming spells in that chamber. Next chamber was just fire traps though, aguamenti sorted it out quickly enough. Third chamber had a curse that turned Baioumi bright blue, but left him unharmed otherwise.”

 

“What? It just turned him blue and called it a day? No death, no injury, nothing?” Charlie asked, amazed. It wasn't exactly unheard of, albeit it rare, for one of the curses to just fail at their intended purpose of maiming or killing intruders.

 

“Yeah, it was pretty weird. He got sent to the healers and they haven't reversed it yet. We think they let a newbie set it or something, it was pretty poorly cast.” Bill explained.

 

“So after your colleague turned blue, what happened?”

 

“It was a pretty large tomb, so there were all sorts of curses to break. Standard ones, obviously. Walls of spikes, darts, a couple 'press this stone and die' type curses. There was an enchantment about 3/4s of the way through that caused the walls to roar at us like a lion. It was bizarre, but not really dangerous, until I realised it was covering up a sound of some ancient muggle machinery warming up, ready to hit us. It looked like a catapult,” Bill grabbed some paper and scribbled a rough diagram of a catapult to show Charlie “except it had some horrid potion in it, we dodged it in time but it burned straight through 5 walls and into solid bedrock for at least 20 metres past that.”

 

“Have you told dad that one? He'd love to see this 'cat-pult'.” Charlie asked, turning his head to try and figue out what the crude drawing showed.

 

“Not yet, I wouldn't dare mention that part in front of mum or Fleur, the fuss they'd make.” Bill chuckled. “There was some corpse of a muggle right before the final chamber though, somehow they'd made it past all the traps and came up short on the final one. It was a bit strange, actually. There was a sign saying 'Don't drink this', and an empty vial was next to the corpse. Obviously, they couldn't follow instructions. The kid's are tired of hearing that one as a cautionary tale already!”

 

They continued catching up, both brothers regailing each other with stories from the work they enjoyed so much, and happily listening to each other expressing their interests. Eventually, Charlie pulled out a pair of knitting needles and his wand, setting them off at a steady, and occaisionally clumsy, pace. Bill laughed when he saw them.

 

“George was right! Mum has got you knitting jumpers then!” Bill exclaimed, grinning at Charlie, who was clearly enjoying knitting.

 

“It's you lot, you keep having kids, mum just can't keep up with demand. She's knitting the kid's ones though, so you're gonna get one of mine. Say, do you prefer them 2 sizes too big or too small?” Charlie joked. “How are the terrors anyway?”

 

Bill straightened up, smiling a large, proud smile. “Brilliant, as always. Louis is currently likes pretending to be a curse breaker like his dad, he ropes in anyone he can too. Just, prepare to think your way out of some really ridiculous traps next time you see him.”

 

“Sounds like fun! Who wouldn't want to be a cursebreaker like you?”

 

“Well, Vic and Dom reckon they're too grown up to play, and usually they rope Fleur into playing with them instead. Mum reckons she's too old for all the jumping. But Dad, Hugo, Rose, Albus, Teddy, George, Ginny and Audrey all think its brilliant. Teddy even asks Louis to play sometimes, and Louis thinks its great whenever the older boys play along.

 

“Dom's getting really good on a broom, I think she wants to try out for Quidditch when she's able. Ginny's been giving her loads of pointers too, but she's not really sure where she wants to play yet.”

 

“She's from a good family for it though. We've had a member in every position.” Charlie pointed out. “And she could always ask for pointers from me if she wants to be a seeker, of course.”

 

“Would you mind? She seems to be leaning towards it and, while she appreciates Harry's input, I think she'd prefer to learn them from you.”

 

“Did she say that to Harry?” Charlie asked.

 

“Straight to his face, actually. I think the exact words were 'I wanna hear from Charlie first, he could've played for England.' They were disagreeing on the Wronski Feint.” Bill recalled with a cringe. “Harry seemed a little miffed by it though.”

 

“And Victoire? How's she?” Charlie asked, changing the subject away from family arguments. With so many members now it felt like everyone was currently not speaking to at least one person else at any given time. Thankfully as the cool uncle everyone loves, Charlie had avoided most of them so far.

 

“Hmph. She's fine.” Bill looked concerned. “Getting to that age where she's noticing boys though, but even worse, boys are noticing her.” Bill drummed his fingers on the table. “Of course, she's free to date who she wants but the boys she mentions never sound good enough for her.”

 

Charlie gave a sad smile and patted Bill's hand. “We all knew it would happen at some point Bill.”

 

“What do you mean?” Bill asked, eyes narrowing.

 

“You'd get so old that you'd be chasing boys that are just like you were at that age away from your daughters.” Charlie said, his face full of mock sympathy. Bill tutted angrily.

 

“They're not 'like me'. They just want to date Vic because she's pretty. They see her as a trophy, and she's too sweet to notice it.” Bill fumed, but saw Charlie's raised eyebrow. “She brought one home. He was no good.”

 

Charlie nodded to himself and reclines in his chair. Bill resisted the brotherly urge to knock it away so he'd fall out of it, no matter how funny that would be. Wow, Charlie was right. Bill was old.

 

“Gotta remember Bill, she's your’s and Fleur's daughter. If anyone can fight off no-good boys, it's gonna be her.” Charlie reassured him. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes.

 

“Actually, it caused a bit of an argument recently.” Bill admitted quietly. Charlie looked up, concerned.

 

“What, Vic's boyfriend? What'd he do? Need me to sort him out with a dragon?”

 

“No, not that. Victoire was asking Fleur and I about, you know, dating and attractions. Typical teenager-about-to-start-dating stuff. Apparently, Fleur wasn't fond of some of my answers.” Bill said, staring at his fingers on the table.

 

“What did you say?” Charlie asked quietly.

 

“Look, it wasn't a major argument, alright?” Bill said with a start, getting defensive. “Everything's fine, Fleur just went to her mother's to cool off from it.” Charlie's eyebrows raised at that; he hadn't thought that that had been the reason for Fleur's absence, and now he was even more concerned. “Victoire asked Fleur and I how it felt when we first met, how we realised each other was 'the one', all those kinds of questions...”

 

“And you gave the wrong answer?” Charlie asked, puzzled.

 

“Apparently. Fleur said it was love at first sight, how she spotted me in Hogwarts before the third task and knew she wanted to be with me. How when she saw I was working at Gringotts, she thought it was destiny.” Bill recalled, a small smile of his face but his eyes filling slightly with tears. “I, uh, couldn't say the same.”

 

“Well, there's not really a problem with that, is there? I mean, it took Harry six years to realise he loved Ginny, and it took Ron seven years to realise he loved Hermione, and there's nothing wrong with that!” Charlie pointed out, seeming to get annoyed on Bill's behalf, but Bill shook his head.

 

“Oh no, nothing wrong with that at all. But then we got onto the topic of how the whole 'part Veela' thing made Fleur very attractive to men, and how they all threw themselves at her, and that Vic should be looking for a man like I was, who treated her as a person first and not just something to oggle, to 'want to undress', in her words.”

 

“Makes sense, so what was the problem?” Charlie asked. Bill gave a deep sigh before answering.

 

“I said I didn't realise anyone would feel that way towards a stranger regardless.” Bill admitted. They sat in silence for a moment before continuing. “I said I thought it was normal that people would be friends, then date, then, you know, the rest... That people didn't just see someone and think immediately of sex or romance. I guess Fleur thought it meant I wasn't attracted to her or something, because she was pretty upset after that.”

 

“Are you?” Charlie asked.

 

“Of course I am! She's the most amazing woman in the world, I wouldn't have anyone else! The way she laughs, the way she cooks, the way she kisses my nose when she wakes up... She's perfect, but she didn't hear that in what I said. She just heard that I didn't really want to date her at the start.”

 

They sat in silence again, Bill laying his head on his arms in fustration, while Charlie leaned back in his chair, thinking.

 

“So she liked you because you wanted to be friends with her first before anything serious, but she didn't like that it was because you thought that was the norm?” Charlie summarised.

 

“I guess?” Bill shrugged his shoulders.

 

“Have you considered you might be demisexual?” Charlie asked quietly. Bill lifted his head from his arms to look at Charlie quizzically. “It's like asexual, but the feelings come later...”

 

“I'm not like you, Charlie.” Bill warned softly. “I want a wife, I want a family. I couldn't be happy just working with dragons all my life, I can't be asexual.”

 

“That's the thing. I was talking to that recruit I mentioned before, Stephanie, remember? She's the one that told me about aromantic and asexual and all that.” Charlie said. “Anyway, she showed me this muggle contraption, a computer I think its called? Anyway, it connected to this global information thing that lets muggles from all over the world talk to each other instantly, its really amazing, and she showed me the people that were coming together to talk about these kinds of things.

 

“And yeah, there's a few people like me who don't want any of it, who are happy being without partners and children and what have you. And there's people who want partners but not as husband and wife, you know? More like a committed long term relationship without romance or sex, called queerplatonic. That's more common among aromantic, though. And finally, there's people who described exactly what you described, not feeling attraction to anyone but still wanting romance, and love, and a family... There's nothing wrong with that.”

 

They sat in silence again, Bill lifting his head up and propping it on one hand, the other drumming on the table quietly as he thought. Charlie watched his older brother quietly mulling it over, knowing how he'd felt when he'd first been told about all this. Relief, confusion, even denial... All at once. But he was determined to be there for Bill as he thought it over, just as Bill had been there when Charlie had admitted it to him before; absolutely mortal and crying over what their mother would say, Bill being steadfast that their mum would love Charlie no matter who he did or didn't love, especially since she'd never stopped loving anyone in her life for any reason.

 

“You might be right.” Bill confessed, his eyes upon the table once more. “But now what? I can't tell Fleur, not yet anyway. She'd just get upset again.”

 

“It doesn't change anything, you know. Having the right words.” Charlie comforted Bill. “I know I'm not the love guru, but I'd wait until she's calmed down, and you've had more time to think it over. There's no rush. It's taken, what? 30 years for you to get this far, it can wait as long as you need for you to be open about it. To anyone.”

 

“Except you.” Bill pointed out. Charlie waved his hand.

 

“Eh, I didn't hear anything if you don't want me to have heard anything. As far as anyone has to know, you figured it out yourself.” Charlie said. “But I'm always here if you need to talk about it. Well, not always here, really. But you know what I mean.”

 

Bill laughed, his face brightening for the first time since they got onto the topic of love and romance, and Charlie laughed right back, patting Bill across the shoulder.

 

“We should have some butterbeer to celebrate. Accio butterbeer!” Charlie pointed his wand, and 2 bottles of butterbeer rushed onto the table.

 

“My butterbeer? Surely you could treat me just one time, Charlie.” Bill pouted jokingly, tapping bottles with Charlie.

 

“Tradition. Gotta drink your butterbeer when someone realises they're not as straight as they thought they were.” Charlie said.

 

“You make it sound like it happens often.” Bill pointed out.

 

“Well, yeah. Why else do you think Ginny and I tried to break into your house at 3 in the morning to drink your butterbeer?” Charlie asked, taking a large swig of butterbeer. Bill's eyebrows furrowed.

 

“Wait, what do you mean, you and Ginny?”

 

“Never you mind.” Charlie answered hastily.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone wondering, the description of the Wyrm is based on the ‘Lambton Wyrm Clock’ found in the Galleries, Washington. It’s a near and dear legend to me hence the ridiculous amount of references to them and the local area.
> 
> I’ve written a lot about guns, thought it was time to live up to my username and write about wyrms.
> 
> This is super self indulgent, with everything I could ever want in a fanfic. If you enjoyed it too, drop me a comment! I’d love to know how many people also have a checklist of: wyrms, asexuality and acknowledgement that the North East Of England exists as Important Things that make a Good Fanfic.
> 
> (Final Note: Wear named as in the River Wear that runs through Sunderland in the County Tyne and Wear. It’s pronounced ‘we-uh’, not like wear as in wearing clothes.)


End file.
